Announcing the third annual White Hot Wine Awards featuring Sauvignon Blanc-Semillon blends, convened by Winemag.co.za and sponsored by RisCura, a global financial services provider. A tasting is proposed to identify the best in the country and producers are invited to submit. Conditions of participation are: 1) wines submitted must be current release or soon to [...]

Blackwater Blanc is an imaginative and assured offering from Francois Haasbroek. It’s a blend of 80% Swartland Chenin Blanc, 15% Durbanville Semillon and 5% Ashton Bourboulenc and immediately takes its place among the most cutting-edge white wines in the country. The production method is unusual. The Chenin, from a farm next to Paaredebosch, was left [...]

Gnocchi is the knuckle-shaped dumpling that has successfully shed its homely origins to find itself on many top-end Italian restaurant menus. Although it is a fairly modern iteration, potato gnocchi is my favourite. Starchy potatoes are the key to ensuring a super-light texture which distinguishes homemade gnocchi from the dense-as-a-singularity character commonly associated with the [...]

Winter is a quiet time in the winelands; vines are resting and tasting rooms enjoy a brief respite from the mad rush of tourists that descend in warmer months. Nevertheless, the past few weeks have seen a bustle of “internal” activity – from judging wine competitions to award ceremonies. One such occasion was the Wineland [...]

Quality sadly is too often reduced to a label printed on the front of a tin of the cheapest of instant coffees. That clearly isn’t right, is it? So what is quality coffee? Damned if the answer doesn’t require perspective. If you were hoping for a definitive response, you will have to read on and [...]

Are we under-rating our new-wave reds? And are local consumers paying enough for them? By way of calibration, a bottle of Alain Graillot Crozes-Hermitage 2011, R295 a bottle from Joostenberg Deli in Stellenbosch. Crozes a lesser appellation to Hermitage itself, Graillot one of the better growers, 2011 a good but not great vintage. So how [...]

Daschbosch is one of the cellars which make up the Breedekloof collective known as uniWines and it’s another with a wine that forms part of the Chenin Blanc Initiative. Grapes come from a 14 year old vineyard, the wine fermented and matured for eight months in old oak. Really expressive on the nose – a [...]

Bergsig is another of the nine Breedekloof wineries which have committed to the so-called Chenin Blanc Initiative aimed at uplifting the image of district. Grapes come from a vineyard approximately 24 years old, natural ferment and matured for some eight months in 300-litre French oak barrels, 90% new. It’s a provocative wine. Some will no [...]